Leonhard Euler

About this figure

Leonhard Euler was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1707, the son of a Calvinist pastor who had himself studied mathematics, and showed early talent that brought him under the informal tutelage of Johann Bernoulli, a leading mathematician of the day and family friend. Euler entered the University of Basel at thirteen and, unable to find an academic position in Switzerland after his studies, accepted an invitation in 1727 to join the newly founded St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in Russia, beginning a career spent mostly at that institution and later, from 1741 to 1766, at the Berlin Academy of Sciences under Frederick the Great, before returning to St. Petersburg for his final years.

Euler was extraordinarily prolific, producing foundational work across nearly every branch of mathematics then in existence as well as in mechanics, optics, and astronomy; his collected works fill dozens of volumes, and he is credited with standardizing much of modern mathematical notation, including the use of the letter e for the base of natural logarithms, i for the imaginary unit, and f(x) for a function. His 1736 solution to the problem of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg is generally regarded as the founding contribution to graph theory. Euler lost the sight in one eye in his twenties and became almost entirely blind later in life, yet continued to produce a substantial portion of his output, dictating calculations from memory to assistants, after his blindness set in.

Alongside his technical papers, Euler wrote Letters to a German Princess, a series of accessible letters composed for a young noblewoman covering topics across physics, philosophy, and mathematics, which became one of the most widely read popular science works of the eighteenth century and was translated into numerous languages. He continued working until his death in St. Petersburg in 1783; according to a contemporary account by his fellow academician Nicolas Fuss, he suffered a sudden collapse at his desk, still in the midst of calculation, on the day he died.

Written by Epoch Voices. Not the figure’s own words.